Addressing biodiversity impacts of land use in life cycle assessment of forest biomass harvesting

Abstract

Forests are an increasingly important source of feedstock for bioenergy as global efforts to mitigate atmospheric CO2 concentrations increase. In keeping with the principles of sustainable forest management, it is important that feedstock procurement not have negative impacts on the environment, including biodiversity. Impacts of land use, including forest management, can be evaluated along all stages in the production of these goods and services, using life cycle assessment (LCA), which is a potentially powerful tool for organizing and evaluating the impacts of production. There is growing recognition of the need to integrate land‐use impacts into LCA for forest products such as bioenergy, especially on biodiversity. Integrating quantitative indicators of biodiversity into LCAs of biomass production systems is particularly challenging because biodiversity is a multidimensional concept that can never be fully represented by a single number, and yet many proposed approaches rely on this. Reliance on a single metric oversimplifies ‘biodiversity’ and might lead to inappropriate conclusions on local land management practices. LCA is not suited to providing reliable site‐specific assessment of forest product systems in regard to the complexities of biodiversity. Nevertheless, the global and comprehensive nature of LCA makes it a useful tool for preventing a shift in environmental problems or burdens across the value chain because of local land management decisions. In this context, complementary site‐specific and/or regional studies or analyses may help mitigate against inaccurate conclusions being drawn from LCA. WIREs Energy Environ 2016, 5:670–683. doi: 10.1002/wene.211 This article is categorized under: Bioenergy > Climate and Environment Energy and Development > Climate and Environment

Determinants and Tools to Evaluate the Ecological Sustainability of Using Forest Biomass as an Alternative Energy Source

“…Such quantification allows for independent testing whether the sustainability criterion is being met. Such measurable variables are indicators, which can be compared against a threshold defined for a specific criterion [32,35].…”

Naturalness Assessment of Forest Management Scenarios in Abies balsamea–Betula papyrifera Forests

“…LCA, by default, uses biodiversity damage [2,3] to evaluate the quality of ecosystem. However, biodiversity based on species count alone does not reflect the multidimensional character of biodiversity, which includes multiple levels of organization: genetic, species, populations, community and ecosystem [3], and might lead to inappropriate conclusions [4,5]. The model generally used in LCA to establish the relationship between land use and biodiversity (i.e., the species-area relationship (SAR)) presents many limitations, and is not appropriate when the habitat modification does not result in species losses [5].…”

A Conceptual Model for Forest Naturalness Assessment and Application in Quebec’s Boreal Forest

“…This proposal raises two issues: Biodiversity data and indicators' availability, and land use intensity evaluation. Concerning biodiversity, potential species loss is still proposed as the biodiversity indicator even if it does not reflect the multidimensional character of biodiversity and might lead to inappropriate conclusions [5]. As stated by Souza et al [6], the biodiversity models proposed up to now do not grasp the full reach of the phenomena involved, such as functional effects and impacts on populations.…”

“…Naturalness evaluation based on habitat characteristics is possible with actual data, and the future evolution of characteristics can be predicted. However, impacts on biodiversity are more challenging to assess considering the need of biodiversity indicators that encompass multidimensional characteristics of the biodiversity concept [5] and the uncertainty related to the timelag existing between habitat destruction and species extinction or extirpation [19].…”